He lives in University Park and had just taken his children to school in HPISD.

"Just dropping off the Hitler youth," he said, with not a little anger in his voice.

Here's a guy who, like so many Highland Park residents, works hard to build a good life for his family, to give his kids the best opportunity he can who felt like the local newspaper writer had just taken a below-the-belt swipe at him and his family.

No. And I'm sorry he felt that way. That was never the intention. And if that's what you read in what I wrote, I'd ask you to read it again. Or better yet, please keep reading here.

All of this started with a racist email suggesting that voters should oppose the bond issue in HPISD because it might draw in poor children and even refugees - in other words, the sort of students who populate the surrounding school district.

Whoever wrote that e-mail - yes, you deserve to be called out, and I've no regrets for doing it. Since your courage is based in anonymity, let me add coward to the list of names I'll call you.

But the residents of Highland Park don't deserve those kinds of words, nor did they get them from me.

See, Highland Park is like the poorest neighborhood in Dallas in at least one way. There are plenty of good people, and there are surely some bad people too.

See, in Texas, we have a legal structure that created our ISD system with the entirely logical idea of grouping students into schools based on geography.

The problem is this logical idea is creating a really bad consequence for society. It is destroying the economic diversity of cities.

Highland Park is probably the most extreme example, but it is hardly the only one. Southlake, Frisco are among them. On the other side, Grand Prairie, Wilmer Hutchins. In the middle Lewisville, Garland. We could do this all day.

The ISD system tiers our cities according to income. The economic homogeneity that results creates enormous invisible costs, mainly in infrastructure, as people move further and further away from the city for "good" schools, by which they often mean schools where poverty isn't the defining factor of the student body.

Another thing my conservative friends are fond of telling me is that government shouldn't be in the business of picking winners and losers. I agree. Government should be in the business of making sure the playing field is fair and that there is some kind of safety net for those who just can't play.

The ISD system we have is not a fair playing field. The nature of the law creates winners and losers. The losers are usually big cities and the aging suburbs that permitted the construction of significant amounts of apartments and middle to lower class housing.

The city, of course, will get a share of the wealthy because of its centrality. But its economy will become an ugly barbell, with a heavy share of the poor, a small bubble of the rich and nothing in the middle.

The wealthiest suburbs, meanwhile, will continue to see values increase until they are out of reach for all but the uber-wealthy.

Now, imagine a system that sought to address this sort of disparity - this glaring example of government picking winners and losers through the structure of law.

What if each ISD were required not only to serve the students within its geographical borders but a significant share of students outside of those borders?

Imagine that this system were structured along the lines of a lottery, even a complex one with chances of winning diminishing the further one got from the geographical boundaries of the ISD in question.

Such a system could have dramatic beneficial effects in boosting the economic prospects of cities and inner-ring suburbs while reducing economic homogeneity of all municipalities.

Why would that be a benefit? Because economic segregation is not healthy for society. It not only breeds resentment, it creates intractable class structures that cut against the grain of the American ideal that we can all rise up through hard work and effort. That dream is ever further out of reach the more fully one is engulfed in poverty.

I can understand the sentiment of people in HPISD who have sent me notes over the past week. Their home is often their life's major investment. And they made that investment in Highland Park precisely so they could send their children to school there. And any suggestion that the ISD system we have is not a good system feels like reaching into their pockets, or worse, chipping at an important foundation of their family life.

But they are benefiting from government no less than the welfare recipient. A structure was put in place that benefits them according to their means. And they are taking advantage of that structure in the same way the welfare recipient is.

Neither should be blamed for that. We accept what is given to our best advantage and to the advantage of those we love. That's human nature.

But without casting stones at one another, we can step back and consider whether the system we have is the best system we could have. If we are honest, we must conclude that it isn't.